Last Notes
Can you see the Monero payment target on my profile?
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=_FeJFs6LJjU&si=yUXnQRgCysxxtleS
Single-Sig 🔑
Multi-Vendor Multi-Sig 🔑🔑🔑
Bitcoin Core 🟠
I asked 4 different AI models and here are the responses 👇
ChatGPT:
🔐 BITCOIN SELF-CUSTODY: 3 APPROACHES
There isn't one custody setup that's right for everyone. Each approach trades one type of risk for another.
1️⃣ SINGLE-SIG
One private-key set controls the Bitcoin.
PROS:
• Simple to understand and operate
• Fewer moving parts
• Straightforward backup/recovery
• Broad wallet compatibility
• Easy to test and spend
• Simpler inheritance planning
• Dedicated hardware/air-gapped signers can provide strong security
CONS:
• One key ultimately controls everything
• Key compromise can mean total loss
• Seed backup becomes extremely sensitive
• More complete backups create more potential compromise points
• Passphrases add protection but also another potential failure point
TRADEOFF:
Fewer things to screw up, but fewer failures you can tolerate.
2️⃣ MULTI-VENDOR MULTISIG
Example: 2-of-3 using independent signing devices from different manufacturers.
PROS:
• No single key controls the Bitcoin
• One stolen key isn't enough to spend
• One lost key doesn't necessarily mean lost funds
• Keys can be geographically distributed
• Diversifies hardware, firmware, vendor, and supply-chain risk
• Reduces single points of failure
• Strong protection against individual key/device compromise
CONS:
• More complex
• More seeds, devices, backups, and configuration data
• More opportunities for operational mistakes
• Wallet policy/descriptor information must be preserved
• Recovery needs to be documented and tested
• Spending requires multiple signatures
• More complicated inheritance
• Potential interoperability issues between vendors
TRADEOFF:
More failures can be tolerated, but there are more things you must understand and manage correctly.
3️⃣ BITCOIN CORE-ONLY
Bitcoin Core generates and holds the private keys rather than simply serving as the node/backend for another signing device.
PROS:
• Uses Bitcoin's reference implementation
• Independently validates Bitcoin
• Excellent privacy potential
• No third-party wallet server required
• Open-source and heavily scrutinized
• No hardware-wallet manufacturer required
• Powerful wallet, descriptor, watch-only, multisig, and RPC functionality
• Advanced users can build offline signing architectures
CONS:
• If keys are on an internet-connected computer, that computer becomes part of your critical security boundary
• General-purpose computers have much larger attack surfaces than dedicated signers
• Malware can potentially threaten the keys
• Wallet encryption ≠ hardware isolation
• Requires greater technical understanding
• Backup/recovery mistakes can be catastrophic
• More secure offline Core setups increase complexity
TRADEOFF:
Bitcoin Core maximizes sovereignty over Bitcoin verification, but running a full node and securely storing private keys are two different problems.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Single-sig → minimizes complexity but concentrates key risk.
Multi-vendor multisig → distributes key/device risk but increases complexity.
Core-only → minimizes external wallet dependencies and maximizes verification sovereignty, but puts more responsibility on the operator and computing environment.
There is no universally "most secure" setup.
The best security model depends on the threats you're protecting against AND your ability to operate and recover the setup correctly.
Complexity itself is a security risk. So is having a single point of failure.
---
Claude:
🧵 Bitcoin Custody Options: Pros & Cons
🔑 SINGLE-SIG
✅ Simple, fast, cheap, few moving parts
❌ Single point of failure, no theft/coercion protection, weak for estate planning, risky for large amounts
🔐 MULTI-VENDOR MULTI-SIG (e.g. 2-of-3 across different hardware brands)
✅ No single point of failure, protects vs vendor/firmware issues, resilient to theft/coercion, good for inheritance planning
❌ Complex setup/maintenance, slower to spend, more expensive, higher user-error risk, harder recovery without good docs
💻 STRICTLY BITCOIN CORE (no hardware wallet)
✅ Max sovereignty, trustless verification via full node, no vendor dependency, free
❌ Keys exposed on internet-connected PC, no secure element, single point of failure unless combined with multisig, recovery relies entirely on user discipline
TL;DR: single-sig for small/spending amounts, multi-vendor multisig for long-term savings, Core-only storage generally discouraged beyond small sums.
---
Perplexity:
**Bitcoin custody: single-sig vs. multi-vendor multisig vs. Bitcoin Core-only**
There is no universal “best” option. The best custody model is the one you can set up, protect, and recover correctly under pressure.
**1) Single-sig**
One seed/private key controls the bitcoin.
**Pros:** Simple, low friction, easy to understand, back up, recover, and inherit. A properly used offline signing device plus strong seed storage can be very secure.
**Cons:** One compromised seed, malicious signature, or failed backup can expose or permanently lose the entire balance.
**Best for:** People who value simplicity and can maintain disciplined backups.
**2) Multi-vendor multisig**
Multiple independently generated keys—ideally across different hardware vendors—are required to spend, such as 2-of-3.
**Pros:** Removes the single-key spending point of failure; can tolerate loss or compromise of one signer; vendor diversity reduces common-mode risk; keys can be geographically separated.
**Cons:** Much more complex. Recovery requires preserving seeds *and* wallet policy/configuration details. More devices and procedures mean more ways to make mistakes.
**Best for:** Meaningful long-term holdings, provided you document and rehearse recovery.
**3) Bitcoin Core-only**
Use Bitcoin Core as the wallet and validation stack rather than depending on a third-party wallet provider.
**Pros:** Maximum sovereignty: you validate your own transactions, avoid custodial dependence, and gain strong privacy and open-source benefits.
**Cons:** Running Core does not automatically equal cold storage. Keys on an online computer face malware and endpoint risk, and you own all backup, encryption, maintenance, and recovery responsibility.
**Best for:** Technical users who prioritize independent verification and secure system administration.
**The practical takeaway:**
- Simple and disciplined: **single-sig**
- More fault tolerance for larger holdings: **multi-vendor multisig**
- Maximum independent verification: **Bitcoin Core**, ideally paired with a deliberately secure signing and backup strategy
More complexity is not automatically more security. A custody system is only as strong as its weakest backup, recovery plan, and signing procedure.
---
Grok:
Single-sig vs multi-vendor multi-sig vs Bitcoin Core-only
Single-sig: one key spends.
Pros: simplest setup, spend, and inheritance. Lowest fees. One seed is the backup. Best for smaller stacks and daily spend.
Cons: one stolen, lost, or coerced key ends it. One vendor bug can drain you. Passphrases help theft, create another way to lock yourself out.
Multi-vendor multi-sig: usually 2-of-3, keys on different brands, stored apart.
Pros: one lost or stolen key does not drain you or lock you out. A single vendor/firmware failure cannot spend. Better wrench-attack resistance if keys are split. Still self-custody if you hold the quorum.
Cons: more devices, more backups, and you must save the descriptor or recovery gets ugly. Slower spends, higher classic multisig fees. Easy to do badly. Heirs need written instructions, not just seed words.
Bitcoin Core-only: Core’s built-in wallet holds the keys on the node machine. Running a node is not the same as this.
Pros: you validate the chain yourself. Most-reviewed Bitcoin software. No hardware vendor. Full features if you want them later.
Cons: default is a software wallet on a PC. Malware or disk theft can reach keys. Validation does not stop a compromised host from signing. Still single-sig unless you build multisig. Air-gapping Core properly is rare. Harder for a non-technical heir.
Rule of thumb: learn single-sig first. Use multi-vendor multi-sig when one mistake would be life-changing. Run Core as your node with either. Use Core as the only key store only if you accept software-wallet risk or you actually air-gap it.
Why will exchanges list Zcash (ZEC) but refuse to list Monero (XMR)?
It mostly comes down to one thing:
ZEC privacy is optional. XMR privacy is the default.
🔹 Zcash (ZEC)
Zcash supports both transparent and shielded transactions.
Transparent ZEC transactions can expose addresses, amounts, and transaction history similarly to Bitcoin.
That means exchanges can support ZEC while restricting how its privacy features are used.
Zcash also supports viewing keys, allowing private transaction information to be selectively disclosed for auditing or compliance purposes.
In other words:
ZEC can be private when you choose it, but it can also operate transparently.
🔸 Monero (XMR)
Monero takes a fundamentally different approach.
Privacy isn't an optional feature you turn on.
It's built into normal Monero transactions.
Monero uses:
• Stealth addresses to obscure recipients
• Ring signatures to obscure senders
• Confidential transactions to hide amounts
There isn't a transparent XMR transaction mode an exchange can simply require instead.
That makes conventional blockchain surveillance and transaction tracing substantially more difficult.
And that's exactly where exchanges run into problems.
Regulated exchanges have to deal with AML requirements, sanctions screening, transaction monitoring, banking partners, and regulators.
Supporting transparent ZEC gives them considerably more flexibility.
Supporting XMR means accepting a cryptocurrency deliberately designed so that normal transactions don't expose the same public transaction graph.
That's why you can see exchanges list ZEC while refusing or being unwilling to list XMR.
It's not necessarily because Zcash has weak privacy.
It's because Zcash gives exchanges a compliance-friendly transparent option that Monero intentionally doesn't.
---
So why might someone prefer Monero?
If your priority is private digital cash, Monero has a major practical advantage:
privacy is the default, not a choice.
You don't have to remember to use a particular address type or transaction mode, and everyone participates in the privacy system by default.
Zcash can provide strong cryptographic privacy when its shielded system is used.
Monero's distinction is simpler:
Privacy isn't an optional feature of XMR. Privacy is part of how XMR normally works. 🔒
Falling In Reverse just dropped “Joseph” featuring:
🤘 Corey Taylor — Slipknot
🤘 Serj Tankian — System of a Down
🤘 Ronnie Radke — Falling In Reverse https://blossom.primal.net/584be3a5a73d9e612100dde01fb68cbda5d01665df7fb09cedbeb4effc90571a.jpg
If you bought the 2021 highs, here's where you would be today. https://blossom.primal.net/6d0d11934a422cb4673be5aa58d5bfee649aeec39bcaaa80de860a6e222a7451.jpg https://blossom.primal.net/1e890062fdb05baf38a4658ba71f1d09dedfb4c8dec8185555f36e84570d15f7.jpg
That's explained in the note.
Do you actually NEED Monero if you already use Bitcoin? ₿ 🟠
Probably not.
But Monero solves a problem that Bitcoin intentionally doesn’t solve at the base layer: default transaction privacy.
Bitcoin and Monero aren't really competitors. They optimize for different things.
🟠 BITCOIN
• Hard money
• 21M supply cap
• Globally recognized
• Deep liquidity
• Massive infrastructure
• Easy to independently audit
• Strong institutional adoption
• Excellent censorship resistance
Bitcoin also makes a deliberate tradeoff:
The blockchain is transparent.
That transparency is a feature, not a flaw.
Anyone can independently verify the ledger, validate the supply, and enforce Bitcoin's monetary rules without trusting a third party.
The tradeoff is privacy.
Transactions and UTXO histories are publicly visible and can potentially be analyzed indefinitely.
You can improve your Bitcoin privacy substantially with:
• Your own node
• Coin control
• No address reuse
• Keeping different sources of BTC separated
• Privacy-conscious wallet practices
But Bitcoin doesn't provide privacy by default.
⚪ MONERO
Monero takes a different approach.
Privacy isn't an optional feature.
Privacy is the default.
Monero is designed to obscure:
• Who sent the transaction
• Who received it
• How much was transferred
That gives XMR something Bitcoin approaches differently:
Strong default fungibility.
One XMR is generally indistinguishable from another based on publicly visible transaction history.
But Monero makes its own tradeoffs:
• Much lower liquidity
• Less adoption
• Fewer fiat on/off ramps
• Exchange delistings
• More regulatory friction
• Smaller ecosystem
• Supply isn't transparently auditable in the same straightforward way as Bitcoin
So I don't think the question should be:
Bitcoin OR Monero?
A better way to think about it is:
🟠 Bitcoin = savings, hard money, long-term wealth
⚪ Monero = private digital cash
Bitcoin would be my overwhelmingly dominant monetary asset.
Monero is something I'd keep available when transaction privacy itself is the objective.
Pretending Monero doesn't solve a legitimate problem is shortsighted.
Bitcoin prioritizes verifiability and transparency.
Monero prioritizes transactional privacy and fungibility.
Neither design is accidental.
They make different tradeoffs to accomplish different things.
₿ ≠ XMR
Different tools. Different tradeoffs. Different jobs.
Which countries are actually using Monero?
The answer is surprisingly difficult:
We don't really know.
And that's kind of the point.
With Bitcoin, the blockchain is transparent.
Researchers can analyze addresses, transaction flows and exchange activity and attempt to determine where BTC is being used.
Monero is fundamentally different.
Every Monero transaction hides:
• The sender
• The receiver
• The amount
Privacy isn't an optional feature.
It's the default for every transaction.
That makes creating a reliable "Top 5 Countries Using Monero" ranking extremely difficult.
We can observe pieces of the ecosystem:
• Merchants accepting XMR
• Exchanges and P2P markets
• Mining activity
• Nodes and network infrastructure
• XMR-related businesses and services
Directories currently track well over 1,000 services supporting or accepting Monero across dozens of countries.
But that still doesn't tell us where the actual XMR is flowing.
And that's an important distinction.
Bitcoin is a transparent monetary network.
Anyone can inspect the ledger.
Monero is private digital cash.
An outside observer shouldn't be able to determine:
Who paid whom.
How much they paid.
How much money either person owns.
Or easily reconstruct someone's financial history.
So when someone asks:
"What countries are using Monero?"
The most accurate answer may actually be:
If Monero is working as designed, we shouldn't be able to know.
That's not a lack of adoption data.
That's one of the consequences of financial privacy.
What countries are actually USING Bitcoin?
Not "crypto."
Not stablecoins.
Bitcoin.
If we focus on where BTC has meaningful economic or strategic importance, these 5 stand out:
🇺🇸 1. United States
The largest and most developed Bitcoin economy.
• Massive institutional and ETF exposure
• Major corporate Bitcoin treasuries
• One of the world's largest Bitcoin mining industries
• Deep BTC liquidity and financial infrastructure
The U.S. is where Bitcoin is becoming integrated into traditional capital markets.
🇸🇻 2. El Salvador
The most famous sovereign Bitcoin experiment.
• Government holds BTC
• Established a national Bitcoin strategy
• Built Bitcoin-specific infrastructure
• Attempted to integrate BTC into everyday commerce
Everyday adoption hasn't lived up to the original ambitions, but no country has pushed Bitcoin at the sovereign level as aggressively.
🇧🇹 3. Bhutan
Possibly the most interesting Bitcoin strategy in the world.
Bhutan uses abundant hydroelectric power to mine Bitcoin.
Hydroelectric energy → Bitcoin mining → BTC reserves
Instead of simply buying Bitcoin with government revenue, Bhutan converts domestic energy directly into a scarce global asset.
🇳🇬 4. Nigeria
Bitcoin has a completely different use case here.
• Savings outside the local currency
• P2P transactions
• Cross-border payments
• Remittances
• Self-custody
Nigeria demonstrates Bitcoin's usefulness where people have stronger incentives to seek alternatives to their domestic monetary system.
🇮🇷 5. Iran
Iran shows another side of Bitcoin:
Sanctions resistance.
• Domestic Bitcoin mining
• Converting energy into BTC
• Moving value outside Western banking rails
• Holding an asset without a central issuer capable of freezing it
Important distinction:
Iran also uses stablecoins extensively.
That's "crypto."
Bitcoin is different.
USDT can be frozen by Tether.
BTC cannot be frozen by a company because there is no Bitcoin company.
These countries demonstrate 5 very different Bitcoin use cases:
🇺🇸 Financial asset & institutional adoption
🇸🇻 Sovereign adoption
🇧🇹 Energy monetization & reserves
🇳🇬 Grassroots savings & payments
🇮🇷 Sanctions-resistant value transfer
Bitcoin isn't being used the same way everywhere.
That's exactly what makes it interesting.
Iran's use of Bitcoin and its use of "crypto" should NOT be lumped together.
They serve different purposes.
BITCOIN
Iran can mine Bitcoin using domestic energy.
Energy → Bitcoin mining → BTC
That matters because Bitcoin is a bearer asset with no central issuer.
There is no Bitcoin company.
There is no CEO.
There is no central authority that can freeze BTC or blacklist a Bitcoin address at the protocol level.
For a country facing financial sanctions, that characteristic matters.
Bitcoin can also be held in self-custody and transferred without permission from a bank or stablecoin issuer.
Ordinary Iranians can use Bitcoin for a different reason: moving savings outside the rial and holding an asset beyond the direct control of Iran's banking system.
CRYPTO / STABLECOINS
This is a different system.
Iranian and IRGC-linked networks have used cryptocurrencies—particularly dollar-denominated stablecoins such as USDT—for trade, moving funds and sanctions circumvention.
Why use USDT instead of Bitcoin for commerce?
Because $1 of USDT is designed to remain approximately $1.
That makes accounting and settlement much easier than using a volatile asset like BTC.
But USDT has a weakness Bitcoin doesn't:
Tether is a company.
It can freeze tokens associated with sanctioned addresses.
So when someone says:
"Iran is using crypto to evade sanctions"
you have to ask:
Bitcoin or stablecoins?
Because they're fundamentally different.
Stablecoins are digital dollars running on blockchains.
Bitcoin is a decentralized monetary network with a scarce native asset and no central issuer.
Iran's situation demonstrates the distinction clearly:
Stablecoins: useful for dollar-denominated trade and settlement, but issuers can freeze them.
Bitcoin: harder to censor or confiscate at the network level and can be produced domestically through mining.
Don't confuse "Bitcoin" with "crypto."
In a sanctions environment, the difference isn't semantics.
It's the entire point.
I used Nosmero to setup what I thought was a Monero payment target yesterday, but I don't think it was setup correctly. I just did it again using Ditto.
Can anyone verify if they can see it and it's working properly?
I saw this thread and set up a Monero payment target on Nosmero yesterday.
Day 1 Progress:
- 0 Zaps⚡
- 0 Xaps
#Amethyst is such a solid client 🤌
Whether or not AI is making you dumber or helping you develop, depends on how you use it.
If you just copy/paste without any original thought, you're not doing it right.
Have conversations where you discuss theory, philosophy, physics, etc.
Learn how to code or something as simple as how to use Linux properly.
Stay curious and use it as a tool to make you better.
I haven't checked in on here for a while. Is the blake2b stuff just as bad here as it is on X!?
2-of-3 multi-sig with devices from 3 different vendors (Passport Prime, Trezor Safe 7, Blockstream Jade Plus). Setup with Sparrow, import to Nunchuk.
Verify all seed backups.
Store all devices in a different geographic location keeping every device away from its own recovery seed.
Descriptor stored in all 3 locations.
Test transaction (small amount) sent to vault.
Test transaction sent from all 3 signer combinations.
Send remaining stack to vault.
Don't reuse addresses.
This may seem like a lot, but I think it's worth the effort to protect my stack.
If your takeaway from this ColdCard debacle is that cold storage is bad and trusting exchanges is good, take a deep breath and really think about what you're saying.
Self custody / cold storage is still the best answer.
I just saw your post on X that it was going to be taken down so I had to come provide the same commentary on NOSTR 😂
Nevermind. I see that says hashrate donations